Serge Gainsbourg

November 24, 2015

Serge Gainsbourg is one of the first people we interviewed a few months back, but because we hadn’t had a chance to publish the interview until now, we decided to connect with him again and allow him to express himself about the recent Paris attacks. You’ll find that conversation at the end of the interview. If you’re not sure who Serge Gainsbourg is, chances are you’ve already heard his most famous song, 1969’s “Je t’aime, moi non plus.” The song is sultry, sensual, and very sexual, and it became an international sensation. At the time, it was one of the most outrageous songs ever recorded. Serge Gainsbourg loved to shock, but he was first and foremost an unsurpassed artist: poet, singer, songwriter, filmmaker, author, painter, and so much more. His life’s work is just immense, and he is considered worldwide as one of France’s most influential artists of the 20th Century. He was a heavy smoker and drinker, and towards the end of his life appeared numerous times drunk in public and in the media, which made for some awkward television moments, including the now famous interaction he had with Whitney Houston on French TV. He was bold and heavily focused on sexual themes throughout his life, and this made a lot of people – even in France – uncomfortable, like his 80s song “Lemon Incest“, a duet with his then-young daughter, actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg, about father-daughter love. He loved offending people through his art, words and gestures. In this channeled interview, Serge talks to us about self-image, his natural pheromones, his obsession with Brigitte Bardot, misogyny, and the importance of creativity and self-expression. He was also incredibly funny and flirtatious with us, and made us laugh throughout the whole interview. Enjoy!

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Alison: So who are you wanting to interview next?

Mimi: I don’t know if you know him, because he’s French.

Alison: Right.

Mimi: Serge Gainsbourg.

Alison: [Thinks for a moment] No…not heard of him. I can feel a spirit around me but I don’t know who it is.

Mimi: Let me just invite him. Cause I haven’t…this is kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing, so let’s do this.

Alison: What’s his name again…begins with S?

Mimi: Serge Gainsbourg. I’m kind of feeling him behind you now.

Alison: Uh yeah, somebody just kind of plopped down on the bed next to me. He’s being rather sultry, actually.

Mimi: Well then, we have our man!

Alison: [Laughs] Yes…he’s just plopped down, and he’s propping himself on one arm, and he’s looking at me…he’s kind of all smoochy-eyed! [Laughs]

Alison: The heat in the room just went up…it’s really hot in here! [Laughs]

Mimi: That’s hilarious! Oh Serge!

Alison: I’m just gonna go and put my fan on!

[Alison leaves the room for a few seconds and comes back.]

Mimi: I just saw rose petals falling down from the ceiling on your bed. He’s being very romantic now!

Alison: Oh God! [Laughs]

Mimi: Let’s begin! Let’s ask him to describe his personality in one word.

Alison: Sexy. [Laughs]

Mimi: I agree!

Alison: I’ll have to look him up and see what he actually looks like after this!

Mimi: He thought he was ugly, and I disagree. There was something about him, an energy…

Alison: That’s what he actually just said.

Serge Gainsbourg: I brought an energy with me that seemed to have an effect on women.

Mimi: Da ladies.

Alison: Yes.

Mimi: As he does now. Even dead.

Alison: Yes. [Laughs] He’s actually referencing his pheromones, he had a certain combination of pheromones that just made everyone horny around him. [Laughs] He’s got a lot of hand signals. So what he lost in the looks department, whether you thought he was handsome or not, his perspective was that what he lost in that department he gained in his overall atmosphere. He’s calling it an “atmosphere.” So he carried an atmosphere with him that just sort of enveloped people. And he says even men were attracted to him.

Mimi: I really have no trouble believing that, yeah. So, “sexy.”

Alison: Yeah, that’s his “one word.”

Mimi: What was he here to learn? ​Alison: He’s kind of thinking about that one, he’s still got “sex” on his mind. [Laughs] He’s kind of indicating that he didn’t learn a great deal. He wasn’t here to learn, he was more here to project outwards. It was more for other people’s benefit, rather than for his benefit. He’s showing me that he projected…he put ideas out for other people to resonate with, and they did resonate quite well.

Mimi: What kind of ideas, for example? ​Alison: Well in his writing style, he’s saying that he was able to capture moments, scenarios.

Serge Gainsbourg: They resonated with other people because other people were having these moments, they were having these things going on in their lives, but they weren’t able to rationalize them out, whereas I was always able to put them down in words and rationalize them for other people and made other people feel like they weren’t the only ones in that boat, they weren’t the only person feeling that feeling. I was a storyteller. I helped people put their lives together, made them feel that they weren’t as alone as they thought they were.

Alison: He’s very passionate about what he did.

Mimi: Was that part of his purpose, to do all that?

Alison: He kind of builds up his energy and then blasts me with a big load of words! It was an unintended consequence of the work he was doing. He didn’t realize at the time that that was going to be the effect. But now he knows, now he understands that that was part of his purpose. But at the time, he was just doing what he had to do. “That was my thing,” he says.

Mimi: Right, like most of us! We don’t usually realize that what we do has an effect and that it’s part of what we’re here to learn. Does he have any regrets?

Alison: Yes, he does…I’m just letting him build his energy back up again…He really didn’t have a good love life, per say. He had a lot of love, he was given a lot of love, but he didn’t really appreciate the depth of it. So yeah, he regrets not appreciating the depth of the love that he was given. He could’ve done better, he could’ve loved more. He keeps showing me writing, writing, writing…he’s heavily focused on it – almost like an obsession – and that that’s what he came here to do. While he was here, he was obsessed with writing and writing; things flowed, and flowed, and flowed. It’s like this creative pool that couldn’t stop flowing.

Mimi: Yes, he was immensely creative. He created up until his death, amazing things. What was his biggest challenge?

Alison: I’m hearing the word “play.” Did he write plays or something? I’m seeing a stage, and I’m hearing the word “play.”

Mimi: He did movies. I don’t know about a play. He might have.

Alison: Like a live performance. He’s putting the name “Andrew Lloyd Webber” into my head as an example of what he wanted to do.

Mimi: Well he did a musical, but as far as I know it was only recorded for TV. [The musical “Anna”]

Alison: Right, yeah. It’s just coming across as a challenge for him to achieve. Andrew Lloyd Webber, he sees as a great. One of THE greats. Somebody he admired.

Mimi: I prefer you to Andrew Lloyd Webber Serge, personally.

Alison: [Laughs] Fair enough!

​Mimi: So what is he most proud of?

Alison: The whole expanse of his career.

Mimi: Good.

Alison: All of it. There’s nothing that leaps out above anything else, he’s proud of the whole thing. He’s showing it to me as kind of like a timeline, but it’s kind of pregnant [makes a full circle gesture], so indicating that it’s all good. Abundant! ​Mimi: Good! I want to ask him about his tendency to be self-destructive. What can he tell us about that? Why did he do that to himself?

Alison: He’s saying that he had a tendency to need to feel something…physical. A physical challenge. Did he [shows me her wrists] use self-harm?

Mimi: I don’t know. If he did, I don’t think it would’ve been well known.

Alison: Yeah…I’m kind of picking up self-harm, but I’m not sure what kind of…[scratches her wrists] but my wrists are itching. I don’t know what that’s about, but…it was a need to feel.

Mimi: Kind of like Sid [Vicious]. All right, I get that.

Alison: Yeah.

Serge Gainsbourg: Sid is the archetype punk rocker!

Mimi: Yeah, he is! Are you two hanging out? That’d be something to see.

Serge Gainsbourg: We do, sometimes.

Mimi: [Excited] Whaaaaaaaat?

Serge Gainsbourg: All of us hang out.

Mimi: [Laughs] “All of us.” Who is that, “all of us”?

Serge Gainsbourg: And it’s not a pity party.

Alison: [Laughs] He says it’s not a “sit-around-and-analyze-things” kind of party.

Serge Gainsbourg: It’s a creative thing. You get together with guys like Sid and it’s a creative affair.

Mimi: What does he do up there? Does he create, then?

Alison: He plays a guitar, plays a piano as well, and…He’s bringing up that American…I can see him but I can’t get a name…

Serge Gainsbourg: We generate waves of creativity. We generate balls of creativity and we send them to people. They have epiphanies and it helps them with their creative pursuits.

Alison: That sounds really nice! How cute is that, Spirit sending us balls of creativeness! ​Mimi: Yes! Can he tell us about a past life that influenced his life as Serge Gainsbourg?

Alison: There’s a few, he’s putting different things into my head, but I just want the one. I’m seeing a map of Africa, North Africa. I think it’s North Africa, because it just looks like it’s standing out, but I’m getting Masai Warrior, and I’m seeing bouncing, lots of bouncing up and down. Spears, running…I just asked him how does that relate to this life. He’s talking about rhythm.

Mimi: Yeah, he was very much inspired not only by African American music, but also African and world music.

Alison: Oh that’s interesting! Ok, well there you go, that’s where he’s pulled it from, that previous life.

Mimi: Is he incarnated now, or is he going to?

Alison: In our linear terms, no. But if you were to look forward, in our life, he appears in the future. So he’s incarnated now, but linearly for us it doesn’t seem like he is.

Mimi: Where in the future? Far from now?

Alison: He’s making me feel that you’d be around 80 years old.

Mimi: So who would he be, then?

Alison: He’s showing me many different stages of this life. – it’s a male – from a young boy to an older man, and several images in between. He’s kind of just throwing images at me. I’m not sure if it’s in America or Australia, to be honest, but he’s giving me the impression that it might be in the Northern Australian…

Mimi: There you go. Maybe you guys will hang out in a couple years. So what does he do?

Alison: [Laughs] It’s a small town, and it’s very hot, very arid, with a very small number of people. It’s kind of like a small farming community. So he’s part of a rural community. And he’s still got his guitar.

Mimi: Ok. So he’s not gonna be well-known.

Alison: Yeah no, just a regular person.

Mimi: Just a regular dude with a guitar. Ok! Can he share with us what his happiest memory is?

Alison: He’s bringing up Brigitte Bardot.

Mimi: Yes! That was a huge love affair.

Alison: Ok, yeah, he’s bringing her up. He’s actually showing her to me because he looked at her in awe.

Serge Gainsbourg: She was just…just perfect. A perfect woman.

​Alison: He idolized her, by the sounds of it.

Mimi: He did.

Serge Gainsbourg: How many men idolized that woman? I got to be with her! She was my real life pin-up.

Alison: In a way, he’s looking at her and objectifying her.

Serge Gainsbourg: That’s not love, it’s something else altogether. It was a raging affair. It was full on.

Alison: [Giggles] So she is his happiest memory.

Mimi: That’s amazing. He wrote a song about her [The Initials B.B.], and it’s a perfect song. It’s one of the most amazing tribute songs I’ve ever heard, it’s grandiose. So he wasn’t in love with her, he just lusted over her.

Alison: Yeah. He seems like the type of guy who gets obsessed with things. He was obsessed with his work, was obsessed with her. It wasn’t love, it was a drive.

Mimi: When he said “pin-up” that made a lot of sense because he had pictures of her in his home and he apparently kept them till his death. Life-size pin-up photos of her from the 60s. ​Alison: Wow, ok!

Mimi: A lot of people saw him as a “dirty old man” or a pervert. He wrote a few songs that some people considered offensive, which I disagree with, but what does he have to say about that?

Alison: He’s not bothered by it in a negative way, because that’s what his work was supposed to do. If it got a negative response or a positive response, it didn’t matter, he still affected those people in one way or another. So he’ll still be remembered, it doesn’t matter how.

Serge Gainsbourg: When you put out energy – any energy – and somebody picks that energy up, its affected them and they can never go back to the way they were before that energy affected them.

Alison: He’s showing me vibrations. Same as when he was talking about creating and sending these creative balls to people, it’s the same type of thing. He’s showing me lots of energy waves, like music, when you see the lines of music. It’s like that. So he’s not bothered at all.

Mimi: I didn’t think he would be. A lot of people perceived him also as being misogynist. What can he say about that?

Alison: He says he can see why people thought that, but far from it. He loved women, he didn’t think that they were beneath him. He didn’t understand them, but he enjoyed them. He may have come across as a French misogynist, but it was more of a persona than what he really was. He’s very playful, I think he enjoyed winding people up.

Mimi: Oh, there’s an understatement! It’s funny you said he didn’t understand women, because he wrote a song called “Les femmes, c’est du chinois,” which can be best translated as “Women are like Chinese” – the Chinese language.

Serge Gainsbourg: Yes, difficult “characters”.

Alison: The characters in the language. [Laughs] No, he admired women, and Brigitte Bardot. He’s showing me an image of her dressed in tight white pants and she’s walking away and looking behind, and she’s very carefree. Feels like it’s set in the 60s.

Serge Gainsbourg: She’s my obsession. Even now.

Mimi: Reeeaaaaally? How is he obsessed with her now? In what sense? Does he haunt her? [Laughs]

Serge Gainsbourg: The media has the gall to call me a misogynist, but look how they treat women.

Mimi: Aaaaw Serge! [blows a kiss]

Serge Gainsbourg: Especially women like Brigitte Bardot. The media materializes women and makes them superficial, and that becomes a learning experience, that educates people. You can educate people negatively or positively. The media educates people negatively when it comes to women.

Mimi: I agree, of course. Thank you for that, Serge. What was his opinion of God or spirituality when he was alive?

Serge Gainsbourg: Who is God?

Alison: He answered it with a question and said “Who is God?” Let’s see if we can get a bit more than that…no – that’s what he thought: “Who is God?” He didn’t really have an answer, he had a question. “What is God?”

Mimi: So agnostic more than atheist.

Alison: Yes. He’s not saying he was atheist; he had a lot of questions he just didn’t have the answers to. He always felt there was something, he just didn’t know what. He felt there wasn’t anyone who had the answers.

Mimi: Ok, and what does he know now? What answers did he find?

Serge Gainsbourg: God is everything.

Mimi: Good! So, in closing, does he have anything he wants to tell us? Does he have a message for us?

Alison: He’s big on creating! [Laughs]
​Mimi: You know he did a lot of self-portraits, but he didn’t like how he looked, so he destroyed most of them.

Alison: He’s making me feel like he was just an odd looking kid. ​Mimi: You could say he was odd looking, yes.

Alison: So he tended to get picked on by others, and it kinda stuck. He had a self-image problem.

Mimi: Yes, he did.

Alison: But he knew he had other talents he was able to draw on, but even looking in a mirror – he’s showing me looking in a mirror – upset him.

Mimi: Oh poor thing!

Serge Gainsbourg: For all my intelligence, I could not work that issue out.

Alison: It stems from being bullied as a kid.

Mimi: I think he’s behind me now. I’m feeling a hand in my hair.

Alison: I don’t know, but he’s kind of not as heavy over here as he was. He may be drifting across.

Mimi: I don’t mind, come on over Serge! Can we connect with him if we’re stuck for inspiration? Would he like that, or mind?

Alison: He doesn’t mind. He’s normally not someone who connects directly. He prefers to channel silently, but if you want to connect with him, he’s more than happy to do it.

Mimi: I don’t mean just me, but anyone who is gonna come across this interview.

Alison: Yeah. No worries at all.

Mimi: Cool! That’s kind of my last question. Do you have a question for him?

Alison: Well, you’ll have to tell me how to spell his name! He’s laughing! [Laughs]

Mimi: Well his real name was Ginsburg, but he changed it to Gainsbourg. I think he was georgeous, personally.

Alison: I feel he’s ruggedly handsome. He’s like “Oh stop!” [Laughs]

Mimi: Yeah, but I’m not even talking in sex appeal terms, I just think he was beautiful.

Alison: He’s loving it, he’s laughing it up! [Laughs]

Mimi: Is he smoking still?

Alison: Oh yes, he’s been smoking the whole time!

Mimi: Well, good for him! Do you see him young or a bit older? I’m guessing he would appear young.

Alison: He looks a little bit rugged, like he’s in his 30s.

Mimi: There you go. Well that’s it, then! Thank you Serge!

Serge Gainsbourg: Sexy bedroom chat with two birds.

Mimi and Alison scream with laughter.

Alison: Cause I’m in my bedroom, you see. [Laughs] He says he’s gonna be around, so I imagine you’ll have more of Serge.

Mimi: Well as long as he lets me sleep. Don’t visit me in the middle of the night, Serge.

Alison: Well…[Laughs]

Mimi: I’m sick and need sleep, and…oh no…he’s saying, “but nighttime is the best time to be with a lady!”

Alison: I know! I didn’t want to say anything! [Laughs]

Mimi and Alison chat for a few more minutes.

Alison: He’s still here you know! [Laughs]

Mimi: Oh, I don’t think he’s gonna leave! ​

November 2015 – Update

We catched up with Serge again a few days after the attacks on Paris, to ask for his opinion and see if he had a message for us all and, of course, for his French compatriots.

Alison: He’s here, he’s sitting next to me.

Mimi: Ok. Not on the bed, this time!

Alison [Laughs]: Yeah no. Last time, he actually walked in the room and just flopped on the bed all very sexy like.

​Mimi: I think he did that so that I would recognize him, cause to me that’s just so typical of him – and now he knows he doesn’t have to do that anymore.

Alison: Yeah. He’s just sitting there very casually. He’s got that glint in his eye. He’s just a real smoothy! [Laughs]

Mimi: Yeah! Ok, so we’ve already interviewed him but since I haven’t published it yet, I thought we might as well make it relevant to the current events and ask him about that.

Alison: Sure.

Mimi: Is there anything he’d like to say about the Paris attacks?

Alison: Disappointing is the word that came up. Disappointing. Emotionally stressful for not just people here, but also for them [spirits], even though they know what it’s all about. But he’s actually giving me a similar feeling to the one I got when I interviewed Xerxes the Great last week, that it’s not some kind of soul contract – this is not regular warfare, it’s something different. Manipulative – people are being manipulated. There are – he’s calling them “superficial powers” – that are manipulating the world into a certain situation that is really not a soul contract thing, it’s really not a learning issue here, it’s more for somebody else’s gain. What can you learn from this that hasn’t already been learned in the past?

Mimi: I’m of the opinion that there is always something to learn in everything, so it’s interesting to hear that on the spirit side, or at least for him or as far as he’s concerned, that there’s nothing you can learn from this, that this is just something that’s happening that shouldn’t have happened.

Alison: Yeah, none of them [the spirits Alison interviewed] are really committing to what it is, it’s more of an alluding to the fact that this isn’t meant to be happening. Somebody’s pulling the strings and trying to manipulate the world into a certain situation.

Mimi: Soul contracts for me are when you choose to follow your heart and life purpose. It feels to me that people who are doing this chose a life path that is perhaps the opposite of what they set out to do before they came here. That’s how I understand it when they say it’s not something that “should” be happening.

Alison: That’s how I understand it too, but from what Serge and Xerxes said, this just doesn’t feel like that at all – it feels contrived.

Mimi: So what is the energy like up there right now?

Serge Gainsbourg: Intense; it requires a lot of mopping up.

Alison: It’s having a lot of ripples. He’s actually showing me energetic ripples through the timeline. There’s a lot of – he’s calling it “scurrying around” – to try and…I don’t know if “manipulate” is the right word cause it sounds like interference, but then if this is a non free-will gesture then they [spirits] have the right to do that, don’t they? To set things straight, I guess is what he’s trying to say.

Mimi: So interesting.

Alison: So there’s a lot of activity on that to set things straight, yeah. But I’m holding back the emotions that he’s giving me about this – if I wasn’t, I’d be crying, because it’s very strong, he’s very emotional. Very strong. [Holding back tears]

Mimi: Oh Serge, ok. What can we do to help, then?

Serge Gainsbourg: It’s very important to not focus on the negative and not let yourself be sucked in [makes sucking sound].

Alison: You know when you step into mud and it sucks you in – he just gave me that sound, being sucked into it, cause that’s what the aim is, that’s what they’re trying to do, to suck you into that fear. To some degree, it’s a light vs. dark duality issue.

Serge Gainsbourg: Stay out of the fear, and keep in the light. Don’t focus on the tension.

Mimi: I agree.

Serge Gainsbourg: Don’t feed the lion.

Mimi: Good. Does he have a message for us all, before we let him go?

Serge Gainsbourg: VIVE LA FRANCE! I LOVE YOU!

Alison [Laughs]: That was it! That’s how it came out!

Mimi: And I’m seeing him holding a champagne bottle really high up.

Alison: Yeah, and I got all the colours of the flag with that, it was very patriotic. He also threw in the Eiffel Tower in there as well. It was a beautiful image.

Mimi: Beautiful! Merci Serge!

Serge Gainsbourg: Merci beaucoup!

Alison: Luckily for you I’ve learned a little French along the way, so I’m able to get these words out! [Laughs]

Mimi: Come visit me again! He visited me a few times after our interview.

Alison: Aw, did he?

Serge Gainsbourg: Mon amie.

Alison: What does “mon amie” mean?

Mimi: “My friend.” Aww, he IS mon ami!

Alison: He’s going through my little French notebook in my head and plucking out all the words, and saying things like “je t’aime” and “l’amour”! Silly bugger! [Laughs] He’s trying to get a sentence out in French but it’s way beyond my ability to say it!